Manager & Counsel

You Lead the Way. We’ve Got Your Back.

With the right backing, people and businesses have the power to progress in incredible ways. When you join Team Amex, you become part of a global and diverse community of colleagues with an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities and each other. Here, you’ll learn and grow as we help you create a career journey that’s unique and meaningful to you with benefits, programs, and flexibility that support you personally and professionally.

At American Express, you’ll be recognized for your contributions, leadership, and impact—every colleague has the opportunity to share in the company’s success. Together, we’ll win as a team, striving to uphold our company values and powerful backing promise to provide the world’s best customer experience every day. And we’ll do it with the utmost integrity, and in an environment where everyone is seen, heard and feels like they belong.

Join Team Amex and let's lead the way together.

We’re looking for an energetic, creative and pragmatic lawyer to join our Sydney legal team. This role is many and varied, and will suit any lawyer with broad general commercial experience ideally with some financial services and privacy practice thrown in. Above all, we need a self-starter who is intellectually curious, collaborative and can be relied upon to get the job done!

Payments and Financial services are going through a period of intense disruption. We need savvy lawyers who can help our business teams stay in front of the commercial, legal and regulatory issues impacting American Express.

Working @Amex

We are an inclusive workplace with collaboration at our heart, committed to serving the communities in which we live and work. As much as we are driven to win, we strongly believe in winning the right way.

What does the job look like?

This is a generalist role with the opportunity to support multiple parts of American Express. Initially however, the focus will be on our consumer, payments and merchant teams. One of the great things about working in our team, is that you’ll get to try your hand at supporting many different parts of our business and multiple areas of law. We like people who put their hand up!

Type of work that you will be required to do in this role:

• Drafting, reviewing and updating a range of terms and conditions, privacy statements, terms of use.
• Drafting and updating a range of contract templates including Merchant Contracts, Payment Facilitator Agreements,
• Third Party Acquiring agreements etc
• Coordinating and managing legal support on multi-jurisdictional digital projects (including liaising with our lawyers in other countries)
• Reviewing, drafting and advising on commercial contracts – with an initial focus on payments agreements with merchants, sponsorship and marketing agreements as well as some technical processing agreements.
• Provide general legal and regulatory advice across a range of commercial matters (with support from senior lawyers) – including on novel legal issues
• Monitoring and researching legal and regulatory changes that impact American Express and assisting with strategies to deal with them.
• Supporting the launch of new digital products, services and capabilities in Australia as well as Internationally
• Delivering training and developing tools and guidance to help business colleagues make sense of the legal and regulatory world around them

Who are you?

You are you, and that’s how we like it. But it’s also important that you have some of the following:

Must Haves

• 2 – 5 years PQE + current Practising Certificate
• Some commercial contract drafting experience
• Some relevant regulatory experience in any of consumer credit, payments, financial products, privacy or AML/KYC
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal (i.e. the ability to communicate complex things in a concise way and provide clear choices)
• Good commercial judgment
• Confidence working in the ‘grey’
• Sufficient nous to thrive in areas where you have limited or no experience
• Great collaboration skills with demonstrated ability to work cooperatively and efficiently
• Highest standards of ethics and professional integrity

Good to Haves

• Experience working in-house
• Some exposure to big commercial deals
• Experience in foreign jurisdictions
• Experience managing a diverse workload with multiple stakeholders
• Interest in technology, payments, fintech, blockchain, open banking, big data and the legal/regulatory issues related to them
• Experience managing multiple time zones

If this sounds like something you are interested drop us your CV. Don’t sell yourself short - it’s ok if you don’t tick all of our boxes, we value people who give things a go!

We back our colleagues and their loved ones with benefits and programs that support their holistic well-being. That means we prioritize their physical, financial, and mental health through each stage of life. Benefits include:

• Competitive base salaries
• Support for financial-well-being and retirement
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits (depending on location)
• Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need
• Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location)
• Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program
• Career development and training opportunities

Offer of employment with American Express is conditioned upon the successful completion of a background verification check, subject to applicable laws and regulations.